When Emma Brockes was 10 years old, her mother Paula made that pledge to her only daughter - "One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed". Emma knew her Mum had emigrated to England from South Africa by herself when she was 28 with a pearl handled gun in her luggage. When Pauline was diagnosed with lung cancer, she started to tell her daughter a little bit more about the life she'd left in South Africa: crushing poverty, a violent pedophile for a father, and seven half siblings. But it was after Pauline's death when, Emma, a journalist and author, discovered the awful extent of the past her mum had tried to shield her from.